As the current governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
prepares to take his exit by May (2014) ending, various names have come up as
potential replacement. It is important
to state that the position of a CBN governor is not a ceremonial position. It is
a position of huge significance to the wellbeing of every Nigerian.
The CBN governor holds the economy of the nation in his/her
hands. The President of the country is often blamed when the economy is bad,
but the man or woman that should get a good chunk of the stick for a bad
economy is the governor of the Central Bank. His or her actions and inactions
have a life and death hold on the Nigerian economy. By manipulating the cost of
money in the economy, he or she can create wealth or destroy wealth.
In Nigeria, the governor is often (over) identified with bank
regulation than his or her core function of price stability. So it is not
surprising, that often when the position of the Central Bank governor comes up,
practicing or retired bankers are touted as the likely candidates to pick up
the position. Charles/Chukwuma Soludo seems to have been the obvious exception.
So as President Jonathan prepares to make a decision on who
should head the CBN starting June 2014, the BIG question is what should be the
ideal qualifications of the CBN Governor? In answering this question, I have
decided to examine the profiles of the people that some countries selected recently
to lead their Central Banks in key
economies around the world.
United States of
America (USA)
Last year, President Obama nominated Janet Yellen to head its
Federal Reserve Bank, which is the equivalent of Nigeria’s Central Bank.
Yellen, has a PHD in Economics. Her brief profile reads like this.
Born in
Brooklyn, New York, in 1946, Janet Yellen earned a bachelor's degree from Brown
University in 1967. She then went to Yale University, where she received her
Ph.D. in 1971. After completing her Ph.D., she spent several years as an
assistant professor at Harvard University, moving from there to work at the
Federal Reserve from 1977 to 1978, and then became a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley. From 1997 to 1999, she served on the White
House Council of Economic Advisers, and in 2004, she became President and CEO
of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In 2010, Yellen was selected to
serve as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
Over her lengthy career, Yellen has penned numerous papers
and publications, including some co-authored with her husband, Nobel
Prize-winning economist and UC Berkeley professor George Akerlof. She has also
received numerous accolades for her contributions to the field of economics.
She served as a Guggenheim Fellow in the mid-1980s, and received the Wilbur
Lucius Cross Medal from Yale University in 1997.
Israel
October 2013, Israel also appointed a woman, Dr. Karnit Flug
to head Bank of Israel which is also the equivalent of Nigeria’s Central Bank.
Flug has her doctorate at Columbia University and served as an IMF economist
before joining the Bank of Israel in the 1980's.
Flug completed her doctorate at New York's Columbia
University and worked at the International Monetary Fund as an economist and
later as a senior research economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. She
was appointed director of the research department at the Bank of Israel in
2001.
United Kingdom
In 2013, the British government tapped a Canadian, Mark
Carney, to head the Bank of England, which is also the equivalent of Nigeria’s
Central Bank. He was actually the Governor of the Bank of Canada where he
served five years of seven term tenure before emerging the governor the of Bank
of England.
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Mark Carney has a Barchelors Degree in economics from Harvard
University and crowned it with a Masters Degree and Doctorate in Economics from
Oxford University. He is largely credited for protecting the Canadian economy
from the 2007 global financial crisis.
Carney has served as Chairman of the Financial Stability
Board (FSB) and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank for
International Settlements (BIS). He has been instrumental in leading economies
to introduce and coordinate a raft of new financial regulations. Carney is also
a member of the Group of Thirty, and of the Foundation Board of the World
Economic Forum.
Ghana
In 2013, the Ghanaian government confirmed Dr. Henry Kofi
Wampah as head of the Central Bank, Bank of Ghana.
Prior to his appointment at the bank, Dr. Wampah was the
Director of the Research and Statistics Department at the West African Monetary
Institute. He also worked as the Head of the Research Department of Bank of
Ghana from February 1996 to February 2001, as well as working with the
International Monetary Fund. Dr Wampah holds a Masters Degree and a Ph.D in
Economics from McGill University, Montreal CANADA.
Common in these profiles is the strong academic
qualification in economics of all the appointees. But it is not just the qualification,
but also the extensive experience in the field of economics in and outside
academics. My take is that it is important a Central Bank Governor has a deep
understanding of economics because his or her primary duty is the economy. A
Nigerian Central Bank Governor should not be less qualified both academically
and in practical experience if we want to compete in a global world.
